


Mourn

by Crazybutsound



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-24
Updated: 2004-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-02 12:19:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazybutsound/pseuds/Crazybutsound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loss catches up with Xander...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mourn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AndreaLyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/gifts).



> In answer to [that writing meme](http://www.livejournal.com/users/crazybutsound/207955.html), for andrealyn who wanted Xander/Anya. I didn't quite deliver, but I tried. You get my Buffy cherry as well. ;-)

_He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend.  
Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure  
For life's worst ills to have no time to feel them._

**Sir Henry Taylor**

It didn’t hit him immediately. It crept up on him, waited for him to have his guard down again before jumping at him and bringing him down to his knees, breath short and pain clutching at his heart.

He didn’t miss her at first. There was the slight twinge of hurt, of sadness when he’d first noticed that she was gone, of course, but the relief at having survived had been strong enough that he’d not been able to think about it more. He’d smiled sadly and nodded his pride, then moved on to easy banter with old friends at the edge of what had used to be their world.

They left Sunnydale—or what was left of it—and moved on easily. People parted, survivors went their own ways and it was just them again, the initial trio… plus one. Dawn was maybe the most changed, but Xander didn’t know whether that was because of the things she’d had to face or because of the simple fact that she was working at leaving her teens behind.

The dreams started shortly after Dawn had left for University. Life was easy, settled by then. There were still the occasional fights, the average demon emergency and sure, one or two apocalypses along the way, but nothing that could explain the nightmares he was having nightly. 

And yet.

He woke up in fear once, twice, several times a night, the images just barely out of his reach, lurking at the edge of his subconscious. He didn’t talk to Willow or Buffy about them, never broached the subject even on their weekly friendly gatherings around beer and chips and a bad horror movie. They shared everything with him, but it wasn’t until after they’d gone and he could call Dawn that he let his fear be known. Dawn listened like she’d always had, even at the peak of her teenage broodiness. They shared the same worries, the same lack of purpose, the same edginess, and even though he didn’t know how to explain the nightmares, he felt better after she’d soothed him with laughs and tales of a student life he’d never gotten a glimpse of.

He started remembering around Halloween, when kids dressed up as ghosts and bunnies came knocking on his door and he was overwhelmed with the memory of a tentative date gone awry. He couldn’t even remember if it had really been meant to be a date, but he remembered vividly the feel of being invisible. As he closed the door behind the little candy beggars, he realized she’d become invisible to him, too.

He walked up to the mirror in the hall, looked at his sad, pale reflection, the thin lines around his mouth, the dark shadows under his eyes and picked up the phone. It had been a little over four years and yet, the blow he’d been dealt that day was just then knocking him out. He waited for Dawn to pick up, but didn’t wait for more than her enquiring “hello," before whispering, voice broken and raw.

"You know, rabbits don't mate for life."

He heard her surprised intake of breath, waited for the lecture on things better left to the past, but it didn’t come. And when she finally answered, voice low and subdued, he knew he wasn’t ever going to stop mourning.

“I miss Anya, too.”


End file.
